They're Watching...

Oakland Mobs vandalize the city

Explain this to me again. You're trying to protest the killing of an unarmed black man by Oakland police. A clear case of racial injustice. So your solution is to vandalize and burn black businesses? Doesn't that seem counterproductive, to say the least?

The mob smashed the windows at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, and a woman walked out of the shop holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," shouted Leemu Topka, the black owner of the salon she started four years ago. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"

...Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said.

All successful protests and revolutions have a few things in common - a strategy and clearly-set goals. Random violence and venting of mob anger is no strategy.